Quirky Crimes in the Capital City

West Columbia

Sunset Blvd.: A woman was arrested at 4 p. m. Thursday after a cab driver called police and said she refused to pay her outstanding fare of $ 132.75. When the officers arrived at the scene of a fast food parking lot, the woman was screaming at the cab driver. The reporting officers got her to calm down, but she got upset again and began to kick at the cab, injuring her foot as she kicked a dent in the passenger door. Once she had been detained and was no longer a danger to herself, the driver told the officers he had picked the woman up earlier in the day and had driven her to multiple locations around the Columbia area. She then asked him to “swing through” the fast food eatery, and it was then she admitted she only had $72 on her and would be unable to pay the rest of the almost $300 fare. As she was waiting for her food, the driver said he overheard her conversation on her cell phone with a man who told her to “just run away” from the cab without paying. He said that’s when he and the woman got into a verbal altercation, and she “grabbed” the cab keys and threw them away from the vehicle. Fearing she would flee without paying as he went to get his keys, the driver said he then grabbed the woman’s cell phone. At that point he said she “went crazy” and tried to kick out the cab window. The woman told the officers her father was on his way from Charlotte to pay the driver, but the cab driver said there were no indications she was telling the truth. He said he never heard her talk to anyone about paying the fare. The woman then offered to give the driver her father’s credit card number, but the driver said he needed to have the card in hand so he could swipe it for the charges to go through. The woman was charged with engaging a cab with intent to defraud and placed under arrest. She complained to the officers her foot hurt from kicking the cab so EMS was called. They took her to the hospital, and she was released after being examined, and it was determined her foot wasn’t broken. She was then taken to jail and given a court date. No contact was ever made with the father about paying the remaining fare.

9th Street: Police were called by several drivers at 6 p.m. Saturday after they said a woman was in the middle of the road and trying to flag down cars. When officers arrived, the woman was still in the street and once they approached her, they realized she was very intoxicated. She told the officers that she was merely “trying to get a ride” to Violet Street because she said she “didn’t feel like walking.” The location she claimed to be trying to get to was less than 100 yards away from where the police found her. As they questioned her, she pulled a white bag from her pants and dropped it on the ground. The officers picked it up and found a small glass pipe with one end filled with a burnt substance that they believed to be the residue from crack cocaine. She was charged with possession of drug paraphernalia and taken to jail without further incident.